A European problem, too

While the world’s attention is focused on alarming rates of HIV-infection in the poorest parts of the world, the EU’s disease control centre is also stressing that the problem is proving persistent in Europe too.

European Voice

11/30/05, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 12:06 PM CET

World AIDS day on 1 December prompted the European centre for disease prevention and control (ECDC) to issue data on the current state of HIV-AIDS inside the EU. Estonia has the highest EU rate of HIV infection, at 568 people per million, while the UK reported the highest number of new infections in 2004, at 7,258 (see table, right).

ECDC Director Zsuzsanna Jakab said the latest data made "grim reading" and revealed "continuing high numbers of newly diagnosed HIV cases in Europe and the changing nature of the epidemic".

Overall, between 2001 and 2004 the number of reported HIV cases in the EU rose 48% among heterosexuals and 35% among gay and bisexual men. In 2004 alone, 21,164 new infection cases were reported in the EU.

The use of European Commission money to set up a European disease control centre was agreed by governments last year, and the ECDC became fully operational on 20 May 2005. A primary role for the centre at this stage is pulling together and analysing data on diseases in Europe, including AIDS.

Dr Andrea Ammon, head of disease surveillance at the ECDC, said the latest figures showed that "HIV is still a major problem in Europe". She added, however, that the data also revealed that "the HIV hotspots are shifting", with the numbers of reported cases falling in the Baltic states but rising in old EU countries such as Germany and Portugal.

This shift demonstrated, she said, the importance of looking at patterns for Europe as a whole, rather than just individual countries, or even just the Union. "For HIV there is no point only looking at the EU25," said Ammon, because the disease did not respect national or EU borders.

The ECDC works with another Commission-funded agency, EuroHIV, on analysing figures for the World Health Organization European region of 52 countries.

One task of the ECDC is then to look at the differences as well as the similarities between European countries dealing with HIV and offer scientific advice based on its observations. While for some states AIDS remains a problem primarily for gay men, in others there are a large number of HIV-positive heterosexual people from countries facing an AIDS epidemic, such as Malawi and Zambia.

The ECDC is well placed, Ammon explained, to advise the Commission on a plan to tackle HIV, and to help European countries "learn from each others' strategies, what works and what doesn't".

There are still significant problems, however, with getting the initial data from individual countries. In the EU, Italy and Spain cannot provide statistics because of data protection concerns, while Latvia and Lithuania report very different HIV-detection levels.

"It is also our task to overcome problems of data collection," said Ammon, adding that the ECDC would eventually like to see a "standardised, harmonised" EU method of disease data collection. "We will try to make a difference [in this area] over the next two years," she continued, but cautioned that the ECDC could only "foster" the process and that ultimately it remained up to member states to make the changes.